


Letters

by rothalion



Category: Army Of Two (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:21:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4657638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rothalion/pseuds/rothalion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post The Devil's Cartel. After being released from the Mexican prison, Elliot lives out his life in a self imposed exile. He sends the folks that he cares about a letter telling them that he is well and gets unexpected results. Stand alone, not part of Resurrection, and complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mercstouch16](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercstouch16/gifts).



      Elliot Salem gently pushed the green screen door closed and walked bare footed, balancing a bagel atop an over large bright yellow ceramic coffee mug, to the edge of the steps leading down from his front porch. He sat stiffly on the top step, groaning when both of his knees popped loudly in complaint. Then, after setting the meager breakfast aside, he hunched a bit further down into the corduroy collar of his tan chore coat. Summer was slipping away by the day, as fall’s chill crept steadily into the brisk, clean Montana mountain air.

      Hunched, he thought sipping the strong milk infused brew, starting to and then arresting the impulse to sit up straight. Was he hunched? Two bites of the Blueberry bagel later, his scared lips curled into a wry smile, as he chewed. The aging man’s last trip into town for a check-up with Dr. Kennedy showed just how hunched he’d become. The time yellowed, plastic measuring tape, stretched along the clinic’s pale peach hued wall, from the black and white linoleum tiled floor to the tongue and groove pine ceiling, claimed that he’d shrunken to a paltry five foot-nine and a quarter inches tall. Salem had requested, ordered actually, a re-read, and after chuckling lightly, Dr. Kennedy obliged the often stubborn sixty-two year old. Again the result, even with him stretching up a bit, was five foot nine and a quarter inches. The shortest, he’d argued with the middle aged doctor, that he’d ever been, as a real adult, was five-nine and three quarters, and that, he further stated, was at the command of his first sergeant.

      The bagel finished, he blew across the steamy mug and carefully sipped the sweet drink. It was the world making him small. The world and all that it had brought down upon his narrow shoulders. Sure, Doc Kennedy had explained that as folks age they shrink a bit, but Salem knew better. His were shoulders that life had caressed with the burden of endless hardship; the gravity of which had shrunk him down into the husk of a man that he’d become.

      Husk, Salem further considered while watching his old goose chase after an unruly amber feathered hen, might be just a little too severe. The Mexican authorities had released him after only eight years of a twenty year sentence. His good behavior and flagging health pushed their hands a bit. A compassionate release, they’d called it. At that, he smiled again. There’d been no compassion in Alto Plano prison, only pain, suffering and never ending despair. All of that Salem could manage. The real prison was the prison of his mind, his memory. That was a prison he could not escape from and Alto Plano’s solitary confinement cell had provided him no place to run.

      He’d still been young enough to start again, but why bother he’d thought. So, nearly thirteen years ago El Diablo walked back across the border into San Diego, wearing his old clothes, now baggy, with one hundred dollars in his pocket, carrying his slight possessions from the day that Rios had given him away to the Mexican Federales and once again became Elliot Salem. Money, though, Elliot knew, wouldn’t be an issue. Rios had maintained his accounts and even invested for him with great success. In short time, he’d re-established himself and disappeared into the vast country that he’d fought and sacrificed a lifetime for. When he was ready, he’d figured he would go to ground someplace quiet and safe, but for a time he’d just rambled about. This ranch was that place, and had been home, his first and only real home, for twelve years.

      Salem knew that Rios was aware of his release, but he’d chosen to stay lost. Then, as he began to feel a bit human again, his conscience started nagging at him. There were some folks who truly and unconditionally loved him. Maybe, he sometimes liked to think, even missed him. There were folks that hadn’t hurt him and they, he’d guiltily realized, deserved a second chance.

      The guilt tore away at him for months threatening to unravel what piece he’d woven for himself and finally, out of despair, and desperation, he’d sent out the letters. All bore the same message, written with black ink, in his precise blocky print, and all firmly requesting, that despite their sadness at losing him, they left him alone until he was fit company.

      He sipped the cooling coffee and sighed heavily, noting that the exhalation of shaky breath turned to steam in the chilly air. They’d have an early snow, he thought nodding to no one. He’d always been keenly attuned to nature and it hadn’t taken him long to adjust and embrace the cycle of seasons, and weather in his new Montana home. After a mental note to order in round bails and Kerosene, Elliot let his thoughts shift back to the letters, playing the carefully scripted words across his memory. There were, at first, only three, and all identical.

_Dear ---,_

_I write this to let you know that I am well. I have a home. I can’t hear the sea from it, but instead the howl of winter wind through my Birch forest. My health is as good as to be expected for a broken man. I just wanted you to know. I ask, beg really, because after this you will be able to find me, that I be left in this fragile peace that I have found for myself. I’m not a man any more, not one worthy or fit for human company, anyway. Maybe with time and solitude to heal me, I will be once again someday. I have some folks who care for me here, friends…such a scary word I hesitate to use it but… I love you still and when I get stronger maybe I can allow myself to miss you a bit more. Just now it kills me to do that so… Just know that I am safe._

_Salem_

 

      One for Nala, and oh, how he’d struggled not to add to the wording, to rattle off a litany of apologies and beg for her forgiveness, but he grit his teeth and with bitter sweet tears staining the narrow ruled paper, he’d stuck to the plan. Then, he penned one for Hunter Bathington.

This letter had proved less emotional, but still, it tore at his heart knowing that he’d probably never see the kind octogenarian again.

      The last, to Vasily, proved the most difficult, and the lack of firmness in his printing testified to just how painful the task had been. Vasily, his old bear, his heart was the one person, the only person who he’d ever professed to love, as something other than a brother. Vasily, the only person he’d allowed to make love to him sans any hint of fear or regret, and who he had given himself to in body and soul. Vasily, the only man that had never hurt him. Rios had stolen Vasily from him, with Shanghai, or so Elliot liked to, when the dark, cloying curtain of anger, hurt and the need to assign blame shrouded his mangled soul blotting out truth and the light of forgiveness. Shanghai had been the catalyst of his demise. Shanghai, and Rios’ betrayal had been the beginning of his end, an end so firmly cast for him that not even the big Russian’s love could change his course.

      So, eleven years ago, feeling a profound sense of contentment, Elliot sent the letters. He’d walked all the way, three and a half miles out to the end of his winding gravel drive way, to his battered, tottering, gray mail box. It had been a day much like this day, a cool, brisk, pre-fall morning resplendent beneath a perfectly blue sky, cluttered only by a few wispy, meandering, cotton white clouds. It wasn’t the brilliant blue of the water in the caldera beneath his little and sorely missed, home in Oia, but it was, none the less, a blue bequeathed with an un-natural purity that man’s soiled hands could not replicate. Once there, he opened the squeaky door and trembling slid them in. Then, after swiping away the tears coursing through two days of graying stubble, with the back of his scarred wrist, Salem held the wobbly box firm on its old, galvanized pipe post with his left hand and closed the door with his right. Finally, with a deep shuddering breath he raised the rust riddled, sun bleached, red flag signaling that mail awaited a pick up.

      Salem set the near empty cup aside, and squinted out across the expanse of yellowing meadow that made up the front of his property. While he couldn’t see the old rickety mailbox from the porch, he could see the road leading up to the tidy, quaint ranch style house after it rounded a slight bend. A road, he thought, somewhat sadly, that on only very rare occasion clouded up with the wane gray dust stirred skyward by a visitor’s truck. Yes, he admitted, sniffling when the pallid breeze wafted up a whirlwind of light dust, it was a lonely life, but it was finally, _his_ life.

      Elliot stood up, carefully unwinding his stiff joints, and after retrieving the cup moped back into the house. The warm space still smelled of Blueberries and coffee. In his neat, yellow, country style kitchen, he refilled the mug, topped it off with cream and stirred the mixture slowly, watching the two liquids swirl about one other before bonding into the sweet comforting drink that he’d grown to love. In his new world, his new life, he no longer required the coal black coffee of the old hard days. There had been occasions; a sick calf, a broken down piece of equipment in need of repair by morning, a storm forcing him to tend the generators, or some random other ranch life emergency requiring him to stay awake, and alert for hours, when he needed to brew the elixir black and strong. Conversely though, there had been times when he just needed it the old way; needed to feel the familiar, invigorating, tingly energy that the black brew provided. Those days came about less and less over the years, as he mellowed. Now, life was somewhat sweet and Salem had, after easing into it, finally embraced his new reality.

      Back out on his porch, Elliot opened a feed box, removed an old coffee can full of cracked corn and then, returned to his perch on the step. The chickens, fully cognizant of the routine, bustled up to the slouched man nipping and fluttering for better positions. The old goose waded into the fray and the hens squawked, but gave him his rightful place at center court. Elliot sipped the coffee left handed and with a deft flick of his right wrist sent the first shower of grain fanning out to his birds. The fidgety flock scattered, all pecking in the short rye grass for the treasured bits. It was, Salem thought, as if they’d not eaten in months, despite him serving them their laying mash just before sunrise. He sent a second hail of feed out and a third, before setting the empty Folgers can aside and cracking his neck.

      Elliot mailed the second set of letters two weeks after the first, care of Rios at T.W.O. headquarters. He’d written Giddy’s first. Again the missives contained the same exact wording as the first batch. He could have typed and copied them, but actually writing the request with a pen to paper in his own hand made Salem feel closer to the sentiment that he was desperate to convey.

      Through his own intel, while working for Bautista, he’d learned that, after fighting bitterly with Rios about the fates of Alpha and Bravo, over their handling of the initial Mexican fiasco, Giddy resigned from T.W.O., infuriated that Rios had abandoned their brother to the cartel, and by the big man’s lackluster attempts to procure his remains. He then, took work with Dragon’s Breath Arms, for a time, before disappearing and Salem had no idea where the man had finally landed. He hoped the letter would find him.

      Heckler, as always, loyal to Rios stayed on, but again, after so long, Elliot couldn’t be certain of the man’s current address. The internet served no purpose since, for security concerns, none of them ever maintained any form of on-line presence. Secour too had stuck with the company, but again where he lived was a mystery. So, Salem sent the second batch through Rios. It was risky, he knew, but clearing his heart of some of the weight crushing it came first and he’d take that chance. He mailed the final letter straight to Gabe Benedict. He owed the old Ranger that much.

      Eleven years crawled by in a lonely dirge, for Elliot and he often laughed at his good fortune, while recalling the old saying: ‘Be careful what you wish for…’ All of them had honored his wishes. They’d left him alone. He sipped his coffee and stretched out his right leg, rolling his ankle to loosen it up. Murray flashed to mind and despite the sorrow that recalling her caused, he smiled. The feisty operator had always claimed that he was an un-repentant, Passive Aggressive and now, having had time to reflect, the old man knew that her assessment was correct. Sure, he wanted, needed his solitude to heal, but a great part of his heart, a part deep, deep down inside his scarred chest desperately craved, that they all had come running to him. Then, three years back the first return letter arrived in a cloud of dust.

      Salem swirled the mug mixing the contents a bit and reflected back to that day. It was toward the end of August and Elliot had just finished canning his summer garden crops. He was standing in his kitchen window at the deep apron sink scrubbing the final pans and dishes, when a sudden flurry of dust out on the long winding drive caught his eye. He’d taken a quick look, at the hardware store calendar, hanging on the kitchen wall beside the almond colored telephone. That day, the twenty-eighth of August, had no notation for a delivery and it was unlikely that the sheriff, who he’d befriended during his first weeks in Rexford, would come out during the week.

      He’d set the sponge aside and grabbed a towel. After drying his hands, Elliot moved swiftly to the fireplace and took up his long gun. Back at the kitchen window, he peered anxiously through the weapon’s high end optics and tracked the cloud of dust. Finally, the breeze shifted and the vehicle popped clear of the road grime cover. The near neon green Dodge truck was immediately recognizable. It belonged to Keegan Braun; the young man who passed as the local postman. Salem returned the weapon to its rack and stepped out to meet him.

      Braun had slid from the truck and paced toward Salem with his arm outstretched. Elliot recalled the look of concern on the man’s normally cheerful face, as well as his strained words. Braun was ex-Army and the two occasionally passed the time in the diner talking about their respective service. They were, Elliot figured, friends.

      Salem finished off the coffee and after getting a refill chased his chickens out of the open feed box and sat down, this time in a comfortable deck chair. He sipped his drink and closed his eyes, Braun’s words bounced round his head.

      “It’s hand written, Elliot. You ain’t never got one before. So, I brought it all the way in. It’s got his name on it too. Well not him but…”

      Salem had taken the small, white envelope from the younger man and studied it. He sipped his coffee again choked a bit, and coughed to clear his throat. The act of remembering that moment still shot a bolt of terror through his guts. In neat print, the return address read, Nala Rios and her address in Georgia. His first thought was of Tyson, that Tyson was gone, had died and that he’d never be able to set their world right. Keegan had read his concern, and offered to stay while he opened it. Which, Elliot did barely taming the tremors wracking his hands. It wasn’t good news, but it wasn’t Tyson either. She’d written to tell him that Hunter had passed away, certain that he would want to know, and apologizing for intruding. The letter wished him well and offered her love. The news, the first other than what he gleaned from skipping around online trolling the company website and Nala’s social media accounts, was the first direct contact the estranged friends had shared in just over two decades. It left him shaken and out of sorts. Then, to his amazement, Keegan actually returned, after his route, bearing gifts of food, beer and company, an act of such selfless ness that it nearly fractured the ice binding Salem’s battered heart. Maybe he could have friends once again. Maybe he was becoming human.

      Salem shifted a bit in the chair and settled back with his crossed ankles on a foot rest. The second letter arrived in a similar swirl of dirt several months later. Again Keegan handed it warily to Elliot and waited patiently for the concerned man to open it. It too was from Nala and held graver news. Heckler was dead, killed during a close protection operation in a country that she couldn’t name. A truck bomb, it said. Heck died when a truck bomb detonated at a café where the client had insisted upon going, despite the company’s security concerns. A useless death, Salem thought. Again, she sent her love and offered her assistance if he wanted to come for the services. This time, Elliot asked if Braun might be able to come back around, and the young man hugged him tightly promising to return within two hours.

      As Salem let the memory slip away, he stared out at the road. It seemed to bare mostly ill news as of late and just two days past he’d fought down panic upon sighting the familiar cloud of dust. It had only been the sheriff though checking on him after the grocery clerk noted that he’d not made his weekly pick up.

      The third letter arrived in the winter. The road was muck, so he’d had no dust devil warning. It would be a year ago in November, and if Salem thought the dust cloud played havoc with his nerves, after the third letter he’d learn that the surprise news might be worse. Keegan had pulled in, bundled up from head to foot. Even the young man now feared the news Nala’s letters might bring. Salem shuddered and rolled his shoulders borrowing as far into his coat as possible. He really didn’t want or need to remember that cold gray day, but he wasn’t able to halt the memory’s advance through his consciousness either.

      Resigned to facing the painful recollection once again, Salem sat up slightly, and after digging out his wallet, removed the folded three page, double sided letter and opened it with reverent care. He’d had to clear everything except his bank cards and driver’s license out of the leather tri-fold to make room for the precious document, but he needed to have it close to his heart. He read it several times a week. He slept with it. It was his last thread of contact to unconditional love and the only unblemished kindness that he’d ever known. The envelope, although thicker, just like the first two, was from Nala, and inside was a brief note and the longer letter.

_‘_ _Dragon One, I have no words. He gave me this for safe keeping. I was to send it when…or if he…please let me come to you! Your old bear is dead.’_

      Salem sniffled away the tears that always fell when he held the impeccably scripted Cyrillic covered pages in his wrinkled, time worn hands. It was from Vasily. It was a long rambling good-bye, the good-bye they should have shared as a couple, together, if life, no, he corrected himself, Shanghai, had not blown their nascent life together apart.

      A short time later, he’d come around; flat on his back, on his sofa with a frightened Keegan standing over him, a used Amyl Nitrate ampule in his clenched right fist. Once he settled a bit he’d read Nala’s note. He’d been killed, Nala wrote, defending a Doctors Without Borders camp in Macedonia; ironically while there only in the capacity of a surgeon, a non-combatant. God shined on him, she’d written, with a quick death, a sniper, and that Gareth and the team were taking him home to Osijek, unless Elliot wanted something else. This time, Braun stayed for a week.

      Salem sipped the coffee, folded the letter back up and replaced it in the wallet. He really needed to stop carrying it, or it would succumb to wear and tear. After all, he thought, he’d committed his beloved’s words to memory. Elliot’s first instinct that sorrowful day was to have Gareth bring him to the ranch, and to bury him out under the willow by the sleepy river, but Vasily had loved Osijek’s ancient churchyard and adjoining cemetery. He’d considered the soulful place a bit of heaven on earth. So, he’d said nothing and grieved alone, promising instead to go there to die, or for his own burial. Nala, his trustee, would take care of that as per his final requests.

      He often considered a letter for Tyson, but the ones that he wrote in his mind always degenerated into a wash of feral vitriol. It wasn’t, in fact, how he truly felt about the man, which confused him. They’d both made mistakes, both wounded one another, but now, in the twilight of his life, Elliot had no thirst for revenge. Vasily’s death had categorically quenched it. If anything, Salem was even closer to just appearing at T.W.O. headquarters and begging Tyson for forgiveness. It was, after all, what he craved. Then, he’d snap round and ask forgiveness for what? It was all such a terrifically complex mess, that even time, with its all-powerful healing attributes, could not correct.

      As the sun crept a bit higher in the azure sky, Elliot’s porch gained some warmth and although somewhat blue the man took off the chore coat and basked in the suns gift. This was how he passed his days. Aside from the meager chores around the ranch, the aging soldier had bountiful time to relax and just live. Elliot often worried over his regrets, but even that was an emotional exercise slipping away into obscurity. His greatest regret was not allowing Vasily fully into his life much sooner. He’d wasted so many precious years denying their connection, their love and Vasily’s pleas that he forget Rios and live his own life. But, time was an unstoppable foe and Salem was gradually settling into what bit of peace he’d managed to create. Regrets needed to be buried and replaced by hope.

      Salem awoke several hours later, still reclined in his chair and chilly. The sun’s path had cast the porch into deep shadow and a brisk cross breeze whisked away what warmth had lingered. He sat up straight and yawned, rubbing his right index finger’s knuckle in his right eye, to worry away what sleepiness remained. As he looked out across his fields, he caught glimpse of a tuft of dust. How ironic, he thought, a morning spent reminiscing about sad correspondences, and now a visitor. This time, he did not retrieve his gun, but sat patiently awaiting his fate. If they wanted him dead, they could have him dead. He was too old and too tired to really care all that much. What could he do? He was running out of people to loose and soon he’d be totally alone in the world, which was an idea that terrified him. Smiling, he stood up and shrugged back into the coat. At least, he figured, he should have his boots on. So, resolved, he shuffled inside, threw on socks, drew on the worn pull on boots, grabbed a beer and sat back down on the step.

      Once the vehicle rounded the bend Salem caught a glimpse of color. It was Keegan Braun. Despite himself, butterflies chased round his stomach. He chugged the beer and fetched two more from the refrigerator. Keegan pulled up in a cloud of swirling dirt and skidded to a halt. Before Salem could stand the younger man leapt from the truck and bounded up the steps.

      “It’s from him.” He declared huskily, his blue eyes bright with excitement.

      Elliot reached out and took the envelope and sure enough the return address read, Tyson Rios, in Tyson’s jagged handwriting. His mind flashed to Nala, was she alright, had she been hurt or maybe worse? When he stood frozen, Braun pressed him.

      “Open it, Nala’s fine.”

      That elicited a frown from the stunned man. How did Keegan know that Nala was fine? Salem watched the boy shrug and raised his eye brows indicating that a reply was in order.

      “I, well we, well I started writing and we, she and me and I, we correspond?”

      Salem frowned again, slipped his finger carefully along the seal and took out the folded letter. He opened it and Rios’ familiar scent carried on the breeze catching in his already tight throat, just as Vasily’s had the day he’d opened that letter.

     

_Elliot,_

_Come home Ellie. I have a place for us. It’s time._

_They found a chopper, our chopper, Murray’s, in the water off of the Bund. I brought her home. Just come home. I did like you asked and I waited. I don’t care who, or what you might think you are, or what I made you, Ellie, just please come home, so that we can all be together again. I said please. I miss you brother, more than you know. I love you Elliot, more than you know. It’s time to rest, brother, so please, please come home. Hunter left the plantation to you; to us we can go there and just rest. We have Oia, we have the world Elliot. You. you have Osijek…we earned it. Please, come home._

_Let me know, I’ll meet you at the airport. Please Ellie, it’s time._

_With Love, Always Your Rios_

      Three days later, after settling Keegan in at the ranch as foreman, Elliot strode warily off of a Delta flight into the arrival terminal of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport, barely fighting down his anxiety. The crowded, bustling terminal was cacophonous compared to sleepy Rexford and his quiet ranch. He made his way through the mob, grabbed his duffle from luggage and headed for the gate. As he stepped through, he searched for Tyson. Finally, he saw him and his first instinct was to flee. The huge man, stilled tightly muscled, despite his age, trundled over slowly his gait barely giving away his prosthetic leg. Reading the fear in Salem’s hazel eyes, Tyson stopped several steps away and held out his thick arms, with his hands palms up, as he dropped to his knees on the crazily colored carpet. To the crowd, the action must have seemed like an outlandish proposal, but for the two old friends the meaning was crystal clear. It was an act of supplication and one they’d played through once before.

      Elliot dropped the bag and crept forward on shuffling feet. He trembled violently and tears obscured his vision. Finally, after placing his left hand on Tyson’s right shoulder for support, he knelt stiffly down in front of him. The huge man immediately dragged his lost partner and brother into a crushing embrace. The pair remained entwined, sobbing and rocking for long minutes, until Nala finally grasped her father’s shoulder and got them moving. Then, she embraced Elliot, and before the duo could part Tyson engulfed them both in his vast arms.

      Elliot Salem was once again home, gratefully closing the door on so many brutal, lonely years of his life and opening one leading into a brighter future. He knew that the path would not be easy. He knew that he was, in so many ways, irrevocably broken, but the strength of purpose, of love and support that he felt in the arms of his two remaining friends filled his shattered heart with hope. It was a new chapter in his life’s story.

      Seven months later Elliot slipped through the French doors leading onto the broad porch overlooking the sleepy river behind the Plantation house. He sat wearily down on the top step, breathed in the dew damp, grassy aroma of the broad green lawn and wriggled his bare toes. The rising sun was warm and spending a winter in Louisiana worked wonders to ease his chronic joint pain. Unfortunately, though, his return to the east had re-awakened past horrors, and still after six months, he fought to find peace again.

      A short time later, the door swished open and the tap of Tyson’s left leg, on the polished mahogany flooring broke the morning silence. The big man sat down shoulder to shoulder with Elliot and sighed. The younger man had suffered the third violent flashback in four days, followed by a tantrum born of frustration, and now looked wane and exhausted. Rios wrapped his arm round his hunched shoulders and squeezed.

      “We good?”

      Elliot sighed, nodded and leaned heavily into Tyson’s welcoming embrace, no other words were needed.

     

     

                                                                                                                                                           

     

     

     


End file.
